Sunday, October 11, 2009

This is the most wildly dangerous thing I have seen in 100 years of economic policy in Britain

Joe Murphy, Political Editor - London Evening Standard09.10.09

David Cameron's economic plans have been branded “wildly dangerous” by a former senior Bank of England official.

Economist David Blanchflower, former member of the Bank's monetary policy committee, said the Tories would risk plunging Britain into a deeper recession by turning off the Government's measures to stimulate recovery.

In his conference speech at Manchester, Mr Cameron said quantitative easing should end “soon”. Mr Blanchflower called the stance “bizarre” and told the Daily Mail that calling off stimulus too early would snuff out recovery. “This is the most wildly dangerous thing I have seen in 100 years of economic policy in Britain” he added. He said the Tories showed “no understanding of economics”: “It could drive the economy into depression.”

The Bank has held interest rates at their 0.5 per cent record low. So far it has created £146 billion of fresh cash, buying up debt in the form of government and corporate bonds. Mr Cameron said: “If we spend more than we earn, we have to get the money from somewhere. Right now, the Government is simply printing it. Sometime soon that will have to stop, because printing money leads to inflation.”

Chancellor Alistair Darling said: “If we stop supporting the economy now it would crash.”

That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.

Shelley

Plenty of kind, decent, caring people have no religious beliefs, and they act out of the goodness of their hearts. Conversely, plenty of people who profess to be religious, even those who worship regularly, show no particular interest in the world beyond themselves.

Friday, September 18, 2009

The Asterix books - for example, the dog is Idéfix in French (meaning obsession) but Dogmatix in English, adding the canine pun to the idea of single-mindedness; the druid is Panoramix in the original (meaning panoramic) but Getafix in the translation, providing a more relevant name through druggy wordplay.

A boat trip out of Dingle guided by Bernie and visited by Fungie (the first dolphin I've seen in the wild)

Playing It on the dunes of Inch beach with N & D (location for Ryan's Daughter)

Visiting Tom Crean's pub - the South Pole Inn in Annascaul - and then sharing the experience with Oliver Dudley whilst he's rowing around Landsend into the Irish Sea (shades of Crean's heroic small boat voyage with Shackleton to South Georgia)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

By night my bed I sought him whom my soulloveth; I sought him, but I found him not.I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, andin the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth:I sought him, but I found him not.The watchmen that go about the city found me: towhom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?It was but a little that I passed from them, but I foundhim whom my soul loveth; I held him, and would notlet him go, until I had brought him into my mother'shouse, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Delivering a session people said was inspiring, speaking on Networked Media and Documentary for the EDN (European Documentary Network) in AthensA walk up the Acropolis with three EDN colleagues for my first view of the Parthenon from up close, its yellow stone off-set by an azure sky

Thursday, May 07, 2009

I loved Matthew Norman's line in his amusing piece on Jacqui Smith and the US shock jock Michael Savage on p.31 of today's edition (7 May 09): "Michael Savage is a new name to me, as perhaps it is to you." I loved it for its irony - or perhaps revelation, having just moments earlier read the by-line of your Political Correspondent Michael Savage on p.3. I'd like to think the two of them have never been seen in the same room at the same time.

Actor Michael Sheen on Francis Coppola & Apocalypse Now:
"It's a good example because the main thing is to really care about what you are doing, to put your heart and soul into it. If you do that, then people tend to care about what you're doing."

Sadly Maurice Jarre, the composer associated with David Lean and composer of the Oscar-winning soundtrack for Lawrence of Arabia, died last week (29.iii.09). Watched Lawrence of Arabia the day after first posting this with D & N - the music interacts with the desert in a marvelous way. I also love the quote from Noel Coward on Galway-born Peter O'Toole in LoA: "If he'd been any prettier, they'd have had to call it Florence of Arabia."

Friday, March 27, 2009

An Irishman pitches up at a building site in Dublin looking for work. The foreman says "First you'll have to prove you know your stuff. Do you know what the difference is between a joist and a girder?"
"Sure, that's easy," says the builder, "Joyce wrote Finnegan's Wake and Goethe wrote Faust."